Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher, No. 12)
by Lee Child
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Book Reviews of Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher, No. 12)
Book Review: An Offensive Disappointment for a Longtime Fan
Summary: 1 Stars
My father-in-law and I bonded years ago when he introduced me to the genre of action thrillers. It began when he loaned me a box full of the first 60 or so Remo Williams novels. I still remember that chapter two of each book began with "His name was Remo and . . ."
Our latest action hero has been Jack Reacher, the creation of British television writer Lee Child. Reacher (always Reacher in the series, never Jack) is an imaginative hero. He spent the first thirty-five years or so of his life on military bases. First, as a child of a soldier and then as a top military policeman. The hook is that Reacher, as a military policeman, is something like a super-cop. His targets were trained men, often devious, tough fighters without a moral code.
As he aged, he tired of his regimented life, quit the army, and became a wanderer. Reacher doesn't even have a suitcase. He wears a set of clothes until it wears out, buys good quality English walking shoes, and carries an ATM card and a folding toothbrush. He is something of a cross between Dr. Richard Kimble (The Fugitive) and The Incredible Hulk. Big, tough, strong, and very street smart. He moves from place to place and gets involved in situations usually requiring his violent intervention.
All in all, it has been a highly enjoyable series. The kind of candy I yearned for while working on my dissertation. Upon finishing, I gorged on the likes of Reacher.
The latest, Nothing to Lose, lost me as a customer. Lee Child, the author, seems to have REALLY enjoyed the recent works of village atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. He seems to have enjoyed them so much that he had to come up with a highly improbable plot just to demonstrate how stupid he thinks Christians are. Oh, and along the way he manages to claim that nothing the American military has done since 1945 has been worth the price of men's lives.
But Child's little crusade against conservative protestants and American military efforts of the past sixty years wouldn't have been enough to send me packing if the book weren't so bad. The villain catches Reacher multiple times and somewhat inexplicably lets him go. The bad guy has a compound. Reacher spends the entire novel working his way in and out of the compound as he goes between two towns, Hope and Despair. On the one hand, the villain has put together an incredibly devious and ingenious plan to help bring about the apocalypse. On the other, Child (through Reacher) assures us that the villain is a weak-minded man who is accustomed to believing things that comfort him. It is profoundly boring, which is something I have never been remotely close to saying about any of the other books. It was literally an act of will for me to continue reading Nothing to Lose. I was determined to finish because I knew it would likely be the last run for Reacher and me.
Now, having finished, I'm sure of it. It was.
Book Review: Good thing Lee Child had Nothing To Lose when he wrote this instalment!
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm not sure what drove Child to publish this book, as is, other than the annual pressure that series' authors get from their publishers to grind out a book a year.
It was a great idea to have his action series hero, Jack Reacher return to loner status for this, his 12th outing. Child's won so many fans, he routinely appears in best seller lists with his vigilante hero.
I just put "Nothing to Lose", the 12th book down, and went and washed my mouth out with Listerine. Bad taste. I had a hard time slugging past the chapters in the mid-60's... one of Child's affectations is that he writes short, terse, page and a half chapters, and many of them. This time, I wish he would have found a way to quit, halfway through.
Child starts out on a promising note with Jack Reacher, Child's military loner, arriving in a desolate part of part of Colorado, where the small towns are named "Hope" and "Despair". He just wants a cup of coffee. Akin to many of the earlier books, sometimes Reacher's mere foreboding presence is enough to get him into trouble. He's arrested for vagrancy and soon learns that he's fallen into "a company town"... an element that has been used so successfully for hidden evil by so many authors (Stepford Wives being a great trailblazer!)
There's a recycling operation controlled by a "Mr. Thurman" who surrounds himself with a gang of thugs, a surefire way to get Jack sniffing the ground. Enlisted by the female law enforcer of neighboring Hope, (yes, she's the love interest, as well)Reacher begins to bring Thurman's forces down. The villains in this book are a little pathetic, and there's a lot of repetitious trotting back and forth to Despair before Reacher begins to defuse the situation.
In addition to some thin characterization, and no feel of real threat or danger, the main problem is that the story is derailed by multiple Lee Child political speeches. Now, since the tide of American feelings turned against Dubya and the war, there have been many, many expressions of political views in film, in song, on TV and in fiction.
However, it is truly out of character, since Child uses Reacher to espouse his own (Child's) political views. Reacher is a consummate military man, who has echoed some ironic thoughts about the military over the years... but to suddenly spew forth in an anti-war staccato -- unforgiveable.
It's boring, it's inconsistent, it's a Lee Child rant, not a Jack Reacher rant. What was a 4 star Reacher book, on the basis of plot and action, becomes a 3 star entry, on the basis of an author getting carried away.
Series veterans may want to read it, but honestly, I wish I had skipped the installment.
Book Review: "Open season and lawless... the way he liked it."
Summary: 4 Stars
Anyone unfamiliar with Jack Reacher is in for a treat, this one-man army currently trekking across the country, west and south, "from the Atlantic to the Pacific, cool and damp to hot and dry". This journey takes Jack into unexpectedly hostile territory, literally from Hope to Despair, a company town of rigorous security and at the center a wealthy, powerful uber-religious man's lucrative recycling enterprise. Stepping into the only diner in town, not only doesn't Jack get served, he is arrested- after taking out a few burly but surprised opponents. After a night courtesy of the DPD, Reacher is hustled back to the boundaries of Hope, where he makes the acquaintance of Vaughn, a member of Hope's police department who is both curious and skeptical about this enigmatic stranger. Jack had every intention of passing through Despair, but after a taste of its inhospitality, he wants to know what exactly is going on in this middle-of-nowhere place.
Tell Jack to do something and he will do exactly the opposite, soon to become a considerable aggravation to Despair's authorities. Vaughn is also curious about some recent activities in the neighboring town and more than a little willing to assist Jack in his quest to uncover the nature of the bustling commerce so carefully shielded from prying eyes. In return, Reacher offers Vaughn some well-deserved support in a personal dilemma that has shattered her dreams for the future. In fine form, Child builds a frightening house of cards erected by three separate agendas, but all balancing on one horrific possibility. Returning to Despair night after night to confirm his suspicions, Reacher's problem is to subvert the most heinous plot without bringing down the entire structure to the detriment of the residents of a town that exhibits extraordinary loyalty to its employer.
Child delivers with the usual one-two punch of crisp dialog, ill-equipped actors and the unchecked arrogance of power, digging deep into the assorted bag of fears that currently plague this country, tossing out a handful of issues for consideration, each of which is daunting on its own merits. The iconoclast never actively looks for trouble, reasonable to the extreme when confronted with options other than violence; he offers his opponents the same free choice he exercises. Trusting his logic as well as his impressive physical skills, Jack Reacher, a man with nothing to lose, puts it all on the line in a harrowing conclusion of good vs. evil, an epic struggle that is merely an appetizer for a protagonist with an appetite for action. Luan Gaines/ 2008.
Book Review: It is Reacher, but a different Reacher
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is an improvement over his last novel, Bad Luck and Trouble. In that novel, Lee Child has his character, Jack Reacher, spend a lot of time with members of his old MP unit. Up until that novel, Reacher was a loner. Now, Child has returned Reacher to his solitary ways.
Nothing to Lose opens with Reacher stopping in the town of Despair, Colorado, for a bite to eat. Shortly, he finds himself in front of the Despair court, charged with vagrancy. He is driven to the city limits, dropped off, and told not to come back. These people don't know Reacher the way we know Reacher. No one tells him where he can and cannot go. They now have the full attention of a head strong man (and ex-investigator), and he won't leave Despair until he finds out why they don't want him there. Reacher meets up with a policewoman from the neighboring town, Hope, and together they work several plot lines. One deals with a dead body that Reacher literally stumbles over while walking in the desert, outside of Despair. Another focus is on the only company in Despair, a scrap metal business, and the owner. Finally, why is there a combat MP station on the outskirts of Despair? Reacher has his hands full in this novel.
Most of the novel is classic Jack Reacher; Self sufficient, ruthless (when necessary), resourceful. But Child takes a detour, with a thread concerning the Iraq war. I didn't think that Reacher was political, but as I thought about it, there probably isn't any reason why he wouldn't formulate an opinion of recent events. Although, it is never made clear how he knows so much about Iraq, as we never see him watching television, reading, or maintaining contact with anyone. It was a curious addition to an otherwise excellent book. The beginning and ending chapters are fast and exciting. Toward the middle, however, Child slows the pace. Which is unusual for him. But I think that he actually adds some definition to Reacher. I know that after I finished it, I kept thinking about those middle chapters more than any other part of the novel.
Child has created a different Reacher novel. Yes, you will have action and justice (the Reacher brand of justice). But you will also be exposed to some thoughts on the current military, the attitudes towards it, and its current theatre of operations. It's a departure from earlier Reacher novels, but it is still a good, "hard to put down" book.
Book Review: This novel bordered on 'Despair'
Summary: 1 Stars
This is my first review I have ever written, and the only reason I am writing this review is that I feel that Child has done something that has me (and apparently a lot of other readers) feeling disgusted and betrayed.
Many reviewers state that they dislike "Nothing to Lose" because of it's political leanings. I have read many novels with have political overtones, but they are more or less enjoyable. The problem that I have with this novel, is that Child has corrupted the Jack Reacher most readers and fans know because of his political views.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
My main problem is with Jack Reacher's support of people who desert the Armed Forces. While I do not agree with Child's view on desertion, the true problem is that the view Child makes Reacher present on desertion corrupts his character and also logic. Jack Reacher novels have strong overtones of Justice. Letting the deserters go unreported was a true obstruction of justice, which then makes Reacher just as reprehensible as all the villians that he has faced. This corruption of a beloved character by the author would be akin to if Clive Cussler were make Dirk Pitt let an oil spill in the ocean go unreported and then attempt to justify it with extremely weak and illogical arguments (Which thankfully Cussler has not). Reacher's stance on desertion is not properly justified in this novel, had there been a better argument and more logic behind his arguments then his character would have been more believable. Child uses Reacher to say that a Marine's duty is first and foremost to his "unit", which it is not, and then he goes on to say that somehow not reporting the other deserting soldiers was upholding ones duty to his unit. It is illogical because deserting during a war in the first place means betraying your unit there Ramierez would not be upholding his duty to his 'unit' because he did not bust the deserter smuggling ring.
**SPOLIERS END**
Because of the corruption of character and the illogical arguments that Reacher is forced to use to defend his decisions, I would not recommend this novel to Jack Reacher fans or to new readers of the Jack Reacher series as the Jac Reacher in this novel is a different (or you could say corrupted) Jack Reacher than the one we all love.